Well let’s start with the levelling system. With recent games from Bethesda (Fallout etc) there seems to always be a level cap. This means when you reach a certain level (such as 30) you stop advancing your stats etc. This seems a bit unrealistic when you’ve been playing the game for so long to get this far only to stop getting stronger. But fear not! All has changed in Skyrim. Level 50 has been designated by the designers as being a sort of level cap – but in reality it isn’t. You see when you get to Level 50 … nothing happens, you can still advance and you can still level up. The only difference is you level up much slower. This is a great idea because it continues to bring the fun into the game and you can still improve your skills – mainly your health and a further attribute from either stamina or magicka.

It seems like the games AI have improved in every possible way. Like for example how in Oblivion all you needed to do when having a stolen item on your person was to drop it away from you and then you could go and pick it up once you’re released from jail – Quite unrealistic when you think about it. Now though if you drop an item many different possibilities could happen: the object could disappear, some NPC’s could fight over it or it could even be returned to you! Speech has also been made more realistic with the person you’re speaking to having the ability to move and speak at the same time.

One thing that seemed to be strangely missing from Oblivion was children. I for one thought it was a little strange that there were just adults everywhere in the game. However this game will feature people of all ages – well mainly adults and children but you get the idea.

The name of the game – Skyrim for those of you who don’t know is the northernmost province of Tamriel (you may have seen the mountains separating it from Cyrodil when you were up at the Blades Temple). It’s mainly occupied by the Nords but don’t worry, there are 10 races that have been confirmed for the game. And the game is set to take place two hundred years after the events of Oblivion.

Well Skyrim looks like a possible RPG of the decade; you can see a trailer of the game below:

Well let’s start with the basics. The standard edition comes with what you’d expect – just the game. If you not worried about fancy gadgets or getting certain additional material early then this is the probably the best (and cheapest!) edition to get. Usually this would also be the version I would get but perhaps this time a change is in order.

Treyarch are well known for listening to the community and not abandoning them when their game gets released. Call of Duty: World at War was a brilliant game with few flaws; many people still decide to play it over the more recent Modern Warfare 2. Why? Because Infinity Ward on the other hand don’t pay the slightest attention to us. A word to sum up the multiplayer action of MW2 at the moment is probably something like appalling. You probably often find yourself repeatedly run at by players using marathon, commando and lightweight whilst holding a pistol with a tactical knife. Or being blown up by people who think it’s strategic to use rocket launchers to kill everyone. Most of the weapons in the game are either very overpowered *cough* UMP, or underpowered. In short it’s an understatement to say that Modern Warfare II has a few flaws.

So why should Black Ops be any better. Well first of all there’s no Commando Perk so you can’t lunge 5 metres forward and stab someone in an instant. Next you’ve got special Wager Matches which determines the weapon(s) you use; at least you won’t have someone running around with a rocket launcher when no one else is.

So what does the hardened edition have over the standard edition then? Well it comes with a steelbook version of the game, a Black Ops Medallion and an avatar for your console (regardless of whether it’s the Xbox 360 or PS3). All of these things are nice, but they aren’t anything special that would even tempt me to pay an extra £20 to get the hardened edition. There is one more thing however that might get you to. Zombies.

In my opinion one of if not the best feature of World at War was the zombies. Well in the hardened and prestige edition you get the four updated versions of the maps. Obviously there will be some new maps as well but what you have to ask yourself is whether you want to pay to play four new updated maps which probably will be released a couple of months later at a more expensive price. The prestige edition comes with all of that as well as a remote controlled car, a replica of the one used in the game. For nearly double the price of the hardened edition it doesn’t seem a worthwhile buy but if you’re interested no-one’s stopping you.

So which one (if any) will you buy? The choice is up to you.

The battle with the Templars is coming to its climax and you are now given the option for the first time to command other assassin’s. Ezio can send other assassin’s off to places around Europe to earn experience which you then use to upgrade each assassin in weapons, armour etc. Why would you want to do this you ask? Have you ever found yourself in a tricky situation? Perhaps there’s a mission that you’re finding impossible? There’s no need to worry any more for in this game you can call on these assassin’s to assist you if you get in trouble. Therefore the more you upgrade them the more powerful weapons and armour they will use and so the more deadly and resistant they will become.

So far the only map, apart from a minor appearance from Monteriggioni, which has been confirmed, is the great city of Rome. Don’t think of this as a bad thing however, Rome is truly massive. At the start of the game however things are not looking too good. The Templars are focusing all of the wealth into a tiny part of the city while the rest suffers. Do you remember where in the previous game you spent money on rebuilding Monteriggioni? Well this fun feature returns but this time you have the whole of Rome to invest in which is no easy task! Doing this will improve the city and unlock some rewards which you should find very interesting.

The combat system has also been revamped in this game making it far more fast action packed. In the previous game the most powerful move was undisputedly the counter attack. Therefore fights were pretty slow and boring after a while as you kept waiting for your enemy to attack you. This time however the game is focusing more on striking first and often, you’ll find enemies also strike more often. It is also a relief to hear that more than one enemy can attack you at once. It was quite laughable in the previous game to be surrounded by 5 or more enemies with one attacking at a time while the rest of them just walked around you!

Possibly the most anticipated feature to this game is the new online multiplayer mode. Not much has been mentioned yet but one game type, which is called “Wanted”, is where between 6 and 8 assassin’s start on a large map. Each assassin gets a different objective in where they have to assassinate another assassin. So you constantly have to sneak up on your objective whilst avoiding being sneaked up on by another assassin!

Although not everything is known about this game yet it still looks excellent at this stage. If you’re in North America you can get the game on the 16th November whilst if you’re Europe you’ll have to wait another 3 days until the 19th November.

If you haven’t yet seen the trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic you really should. The graphics are absolutely brilliant and the gameplay seems astounding. In the Star Wars Old Republic series I’ve played both of the games predecessors: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (I & II), if those games were anything to go on I thought that this game would be very very good.

There are two main factions in the game. Any Star Wars fan can guess that they are the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. Within these factions are 8 confirmed classes, these are: The Bounty Hunter, Sith Warrior, Imperial Agent and Sith Inquisitor (for the Sith Empire); and the Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight and Jedi Consular (for the Galactic Republic).

There’s only one problem I can find with the game, and unfortunately for me it’s a very big problem. You see its a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). You see I find these kinds of game pointless because you have to pay monthly. It’s not the online part that annoys me it’s the money involved. I would much rather pay a one off payment of say £60 then pay £10 a month or something like that.

If you like MMORPG’s like WoW or something similar then I definitely would suggest getting this game when it comes out. However if like me you don’t even though the game is brilliant I would advise against it.

So you’ll understand how excited I was when I heard that Lego Star Wars III is coming out in Fall 2010. Being a proud owner of all 3 of the last Lego Star Wars games I honestly believed that another one wouldn’t be coming out. They had done all of the movies so what more could possibly happen? Well with the Clone Wars film and brilliant series on the television I suppose it was only a matter of time before they decided to bring a game out.

This game looks like a massive improvement on its predecessor which is great news. The game is to naturally include all of the characters from both seasons of the television series as well as some top ones from the films, I’m sure we can expect characters such as Darth Vader, Darth Maul and Luke Skywalker! The game itself has also been revamped and we can expect some new features such as the Squad Command feature; Lightsaber Slicing; Lightsaber Jumps; Long Distance Jedi Attacks and many more.

Well if your a fan of the LEGO series of games this is definitely a must buy. But the question is what could keep you occupied until October? Well there’s that new LEGO Harry Potter game coming out at the end of May. I know for sure these two games are definitely going to be finding a way onto my PS3.

Out of all the games in the shooting genre Call of Duty has always taken the lead with brilliant graphics, weapons, extras and loads of other things so you must be mad not to get this game when it comes out! The release date for the game is 10th November 2009 however this is subject to change. It has not yet been told which consoles the game will be available on but it is pretty easy to guess. Definite choices are the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 along with the Nintendo Wii. The DS, PC, PS2 are also contenders as you could play on them with Call of Duty 5. However will the PSP join in this time around?

Anyway despite it being another 6 months until it comes out and the fact that there is very little information to go buy it looks like it’s going to be a must buy unless something goes terribly wrong. Lets hope there are zombie extras!

Compare prices for Call of Duty: World at War at Twenga

The developer YUKE and publisher THQ have gone all out to make one brilliant game. Now I can’t tell you everything about it because the game hasn’t come out yet but what I have played of the demo available on the PSN is that this game is very …. unique. Now I’m more of a Smackdown Vs Raw fan myself because I feel that there are a variety of controls and other features but lets remember that’s only because its been going on for years and years. This Legends of Wrestlemania hasn’t and so we can expect less.

The controls are different in the game which may prove difficult at first for veteran Smackdown Vs Raw players but after a while you can play brilliantly. This game looks excellent and if I were you I would pre-order it so you can play it soon, that’s what I have done. Expect a review in the next couple of weeks.

To discuss this game and more visit the new XtraGamer forum

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ODST stands for “Orbital Drop Shock Troopers”, which are an elite group trained in special warfare tactics. This elite group was first seen in Halo: Combat Evolved and are will also be a playable unit in the new Halo Wars video game. In Halo 3 you can also unlock a special ODST helmet for your character. As you can probably guess the Halo 3: ODST game is based around a 6 man ODST squad, you play as “The Rookie”. He is a lance-corporal and his main task is trying to group up with his fellow team mates.

Bungie have assured everyone that this is a completely new Halo game and considering your not playing as the Master Chief it certainly looks that way. There will be a few parts to the game that experienced players may feel a bit let down about however. As you are playing as a human, not a Spartan, in this game your speed will be dramatically reduced and you will lose the ability to dual-wield weapons such as the SMG. There are some advantages though: You get a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) which will probably give you helpful information such as mission objectives etc. Also new to the series will be a unique identification system built into the HUD of your player. This identifies whether characters are allies or enemies.

This looks to be one heck of a game and a completely new version for the Halo series, if you like Halo then you better be buying this game when it comes out, look out around Autumn 2009.

To discuss this game and more visit the new XtraGamer forum

Compare prices for Halo 3 at Twenga

Nintendo made the DS in March 2005 and was an instant hit with the world. However it was a bit bulky and weighed quite a bit. That is why in June 2006 the DS Lite was produced which was lighter and more efficient than the original DS. Now 2 ½ years down the line the DS Lite in my opinion still does the job fine. The games still play properly and all of the features work, but there does seem to be something missing.

The DSi solves numerous small problems that the DS Lite has fallen to. For example one problem that people complained about with the DS Lite is that the colours showing when the battery power was low. Some people cannot tell the difference between the colours red and green and so had no clue when the DS would turn off. The DSi has three separate lights now on the left hand of the console (was originally on the right), one for the Wi-Fi connection, one for charging and one for power, also each has it’s own symbol so they are easy to distinguish between.

The annoying spring loaded power button on the side of the DS Lite has now disappeared and it has been replaced with a small circular button on the bottom left of the DSi. Another thing is the speakers in the console, they have been thoroughly improved. Instead of 6 small dots there is now just one small rectangle. Although that may seem a disadvantage the sound is of better quality and it looks nicer as well.

The two screens are bigger as well! They are 17% larger than the previous ones, which is an extra 0.25 inches. Although that might not seem like much you can see the difference. The DSi has the capability to play AAC music files. This is thanks to the DSi’s SD slot. There are also two cameras on the DSi. One on the outside and one on the inside where the microphone used to be. The microphone has been moved slightly to the right. Thanks to the SD slot you can save your pictures on there and even downloadable games!

Yes, just like the current “WiiWare” for the Wii there is now going to be a “DSiWare” for the Nintendo DSi. The most expensive games are said to be around 800 points, while most are around 200 or 500 points. The Wii point cards are probably going to be renamed Nintendo point cards so that they can be used for both the DSi and the Wii. In Japan customers were given 1000 points free as an incentive, who knows what could happen in the US and Europe?

However with all these good points such as bigger screens, a lighter console, an SD slot etc something has to go. The price for all these brilliant things is the Game-Boy Advance slot at the bottom of the DS Lite. Now for me that’s not a disappointment because I don’t have any GBA games. But even if you don’t play GBA games other options will be unavailable. For example the new Guitar Hero: On Tour uses the GBA slot to plug in the coloured buttons, that game will be useless on the new DSi.

But that is the only negative point of the DSi to be honest. In my opinion with all the new great options that are available on this console the loss of the GBA slot is a small price to pay. The sale price in Japan was around 18,000 Yen which translates into around £130 in the UK. So in other words just a bit more than the DS Lite at the moment. However most people at the moment are happy with their DS Lite.

So overall this looks to be a very good console but if you really happy with your DS Lite then don’t bother buying one until you need to. On the other hand if you either don’t have a DS Lite or really want this then go for it, it looks to be one brilliant hand-held console.

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I got the previous game on the Wii last year and to me it was a little bit disappointing. The game was still good but because it was the first time on the Wii it didn’t have all of the extras that the other consoles did. However this year this game will be improved significantly not just on the Wii but on every console. A brand new extra which will sure to be liked is the “create-a-finisher” mode. This feature lets you go into great depth and really lets you have complete control over creating your unique finisher, and with all of the choices available your finisher really will be unique.

On the PS3, PS2 and Xbox 360 consoles there will be the usual “create-a-entrance” mode which is also said to be improved. Again like last year they have decided to leave it out from the Nintendo Wii. However what they have added instead I think is a lot better and unique to the Wii’s controls. While the superstar is walking down the ring you can raise your hands up, do taunts etc by using the Wii remote and nunchuk. Also at the end of the match you can even shake your opponents hand and then hit them to the ground! I think that is a lot better than creating an entrance!

This game looks brilliant and it is set to come out in the Europe on the 7th November 2008. That’s under 10 days away now, if you want to get it I suggest you pre-order it, I already have, it looks to be one heck of a game!